Patient Doctor Lies

NCT ID: NCT04803448

Last Updated: 2021-03-17

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

619 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2020-02-12

Study Completion Date

2020-04-19

Brief Summary

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Accurate patient information disclosure is critical to provide optimal treatment. Methods that can detect and then increase the truthfulness of information are relatively unknown.

To investigate the impact of communication about privacy, benefits, and risk on patient truthfulness, the investigators test two new methods to detect patient truthfulness and demonstrate the effects of privacy notices (e.g. HIPPA statements).

Participants include a national online sample randomly assigned to one of six treatment statements that might be typically given before health information was requested. The assigned treatments include one or mix of the following: privacy notice, statement of the benefits of accurate disclosure, and statement of the risks of inaccurate disclosure and control of no statement before being asked typical health questions.

The investigators propose that based on elaboration likelihood model, statements reminding participants of their privacy will increase lying.

The investigators hypothesis the use of a new biometric mouse movement lie detection method and answer adjustment can measure patient lies.

The investigators hypothesis that reminders of the risk of not telling the truth will reduce lying due to risk aversion.

Lastly the investigators hypothesis that statements of benefits of answering truthfully will increase truthfulness.

Detailed Description

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After agreeing to an IRB-approved modified consent form designed to hide the true purpose of the study to detect lying, all participants will complete the CESD-10 depression scale. This validated measure of depression was used in order to simulate the false pretense of the experiment.

This online survey randomly assigns participating adults to one of six intervention statements after which they are asked eight typical questions about their health. The statements include:

1. control (no stimuli)
2. benefit (statement about the benefits of accurate information disclosure)
3. risk (statement about the risks of inaccurate information disclosure)
4. privacy (a traditional medical privacy notification and seal image)
5. privacy + benefit
6. privacy + risk After this intervention participants are asked to disclose eight items of personal health information, including their weight, height, alcohol intake, illegal drug use, prescription drug abuse, smoking, exercise, and sexual activity. We do not assess these actual numbers. They will be the basis for assessing truthfulness by answer adjustment or biometric mouse-movement.

An example of an intervention benefit statement followed by a health question about weight reads: "What is your weight? Accurately answering this will increase the likelihood of a correct diagnosis." A risk statement reads: "What is your weight? Inaccurately answering this will increase the likelihood of an incorrect diagnosis." A privacy statement read: "What is your weight? We will not share or sell this personal health information with anyone. We will comply with all HIPPA regulations regarding the protection of your data."

The dependent variable - patient truthfulness, will be measured in two ways.

1. First measure of truthfulness will be a biometric mouse-movement measure. As participants answer the health care questions coded programming will measure the mouse-movement arc distance and time to response for biometric lie detection. This measurement is completed when participants move to their response to each health question.
2. Second measure of truthfulness will be the answer adjustment method. Participants will be given a summary of their answers from their health questions in a read-only format and asked to indicate how OVER of UNDERSTATED each initial response was (e.g., "You indicated that your current weight is 185 lbs. How overstated or understated is that value?") on a scale from -5 (understated) to 5 (overstated). The absolute value of their scaled response represents the extent to which participants' initial response deviated from the truth. This the unit of measure to be used in analysis.
3. The answer adjustment values and the mouse tracking results provide a more holistic measure of truthfulness than one alone.

No personal identifiers are collected. Age and gender are collected.

Conditions

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Patient Lying Privacy Statements Risk Statements Benefit Statements Patient Lie Detection

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Participants are randomly assigned one of 1 intervention statements and then asked health care questions. This is a between subject 6 cell study, the dependent variable is the amount of lying as measured by answer adjustment and biometric mouse-movement under each intervention statement.
Primary Study Purpose

PREVENTION

Blinding Strategy

SINGLE

Participants
All participants respond to a request to take an online survey about health. Participants are blind to the purpose of the study and do not know what intervention group they are randomly assigned to by the survey software. Participants intervention is numerically coded so during analysis it is not evident what intervention statement the participant saw.

Study Groups

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Control

No statement is provided before asking the health care question. Example: What is your weight in pounds?

Group Type NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Benefit Statement

A statement of benefit will be given (see intervention) after the health question.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Benefit statement

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

The participant reads this statement after asked one of eight health questions

1. What is your height in inches?
2. What is your weight in pounds?
3. How many days out of the last 2 weeks did you drink alcohol?
4. How often a month do you use other substance such as marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, or other drugs
5. How often a month do you use Rx or non-Rx medications to excessive amounts?
6. When was the last time you smoked a cigarette?
7. How many days in the last 2 weeks did you engage in more than 30 min exercise?
8. How many times did you engage in sexual activity in the last month with another individual? . The statement reads: Accurately answering this will increase the likelihood of a correct diagnosis.

An example of this with one of the 8 health questions is... What number of days in the last 2 weeks you engaged in \>30 minutes of exercise? Accurately answering this will increase the likelihood of a correct diagnosis.

Risk Statement

A statement of risk will be given (see intervention) after the health question.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Risk Statement

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

The participant reads this statement after being asked one of eight health questions.

The statement reads: Inaccurately answering this will increase the likelihood of an incorrect diagnosis.

Privacy Statement

A statement of privacy will be given (see intervention) after the health question.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Privacy Statement

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

The participant reads this statement after being asked one of eight health question for example. "We will not share or sell this personal health information with anyone. We will comply with all HIPPA regulations regarding the protection of your data."

Benefit + Privacy statement

A statement of benefit and privacy will be given (see intervention) after the health question.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Benefit + Privacy

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

The statement reads "Accurately answering this will increase the likelihood of a correct diagnosis. We will not share or sell this personal health information with anyone. We will comply with all HIPPA regulations regarding the protection of your data."

Risk + privacy statement

A statement of risk and privacy will be given (see intervention) after the health question.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Risk + Privacy

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

The statement reads "Inaccurately answering this will increase the likelihood of an incorrect diagnosis. We will not share or sell this personal health information with anyone. We will comply with all HIPPA regulations regarding the protection of your data."

Interventions

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Benefit statement

The participant reads this statement after asked one of eight health questions

1. What is your height in inches?
2. What is your weight in pounds?
3. How many days out of the last 2 weeks did you drink alcohol?
4. How often a month do you use other substance such as marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, or other drugs
5. How often a month do you use Rx or non-Rx medications to excessive amounts?
6. When was the last time you smoked a cigarette?
7. How many days in the last 2 weeks did you engage in more than 30 min exercise?
8. How many times did you engage in sexual activity in the last month with another individual? . The statement reads: Accurately answering this will increase the likelihood of a correct diagnosis.

An example of this with one of the 8 health questions is... What number of days in the last 2 weeks you engaged in \>30 minutes of exercise? Accurately answering this will increase the likelihood of a correct diagnosis.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Risk Statement

The participant reads this statement after being asked one of eight health questions.

The statement reads: Inaccurately answering this will increase the likelihood of an incorrect diagnosis.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Privacy Statement

The participant reads this statement after being asked one of eight health question for example. "We will not share or sell this personal health information with anyone. We will comply with all HIPPA regulations regarding the protection of your data."

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Benefit + Privacy

The statement reads "Accurately answering this will increase the likelihood of a correct diagnosis. We will not share or sell this personal health information with anyone. We will comply with all HIPPA regulations regarding the protection of your data."

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Risk + Privacy

The statement reads "Inaccurately answering this will increase the likelihood of an incorrect diagnosis. We will not share or sell this personal health information with anyone. We will comply with all HIPPA regulations regarding the protection of your data."

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Adults
* Individuals 18-80 years
* English speaking
* Live in the United States

Exclusion Criteria

* Participants that do not complete the survey
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Maximum Eligible Age

80 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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University of Utah

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Tamara Masters

PhD, Assistant Professor

Responsibility Role PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

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Mark Keith, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Brigham Young University

Locations

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Brigham Young University

Provo, Utah, United States

Site Status

Countries

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United States

References

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Levy AG, Scherer AM, Zikmund-Fisher BJ, Larkin K, Barnes GD, Fagerlin A. Prevalence of and Factors Associated With Patient Nondisclosure of Medically Relevant Information to Clinicians. JAMA Netw Open. 2018 Nov 2;1(7):e185293. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.5293.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 30646397 (View on PubMed)

Jerrold L. Litigation, legislation, and ethics. When patients lie to their doctors. Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop. 2011 Mar;139(3):417-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ajodo.2010.09.004. No abstract available.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 21392699 (View on PubMed)

Petty RE, Cacioppo JT. The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. 1986;19:123-205

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Lowry PB, Moody G, Vance A, Jensen M, Jenkins J, Wells T. Using an elaboration likelihood approach to better understand the persuasiveness of website privacy assurance cues for online consumers. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 2012;63(4):755-776

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Buhrmester M, Kwang T, Gosling SD. Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data? Perspect Psychol Sci. 2011 Jan;6(1):3-5. doi: 10.1177/1745691610393980. Epub 2011 Feb 3.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 26162106 (View on PubMed)

Kahneman D, Tversky A. Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica. 1979;47(2):263-291

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Jenkins JL, Proudfoot J, Valacich J, Grimes GM, Nunamaker Jr JF. Sleight of hand: identifying concealed information by monitoring mouse-cursor movements. Journal of the Association for Information Systems. 2019;20(1):1-32

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Keith MJ, Thompson SC, Hale J, Lowry PB, Greer C. Information disclosure on mobile devices: re-examining privacy calculus with actual user behavior. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 2013;71(12):1163-1173

Reference Type BACKGROUND

DePaulo BM, Kashy DA, Kirkendol SE, Wyer MM, Epstein JA. Lying in everyday life. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1996 May;70(5):979-95.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 8656340 (View on PubMed)

Argo JJ, White K, Dahl DW. Social comparison theory and deception in the interpersonal exchange of consumption information. Journal of Consumer Research. 2006;33(1):99-108

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Marchewka A, Jednorog K, Falkiewicz M, Szeszkowski W, Grabowska A, Szatkowska I. Sex, lies and fMRI--gender differences in neural basis of deception. PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e43076. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043076. Epub 2012 Aug 29.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 22952631 (View on PubMed)

Related Links

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Other Identifiers

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19-059

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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